Australian Startups Carnival

Vishal Sharma announced a carnival event for Aussie startups a few weeks ago. Unfortunately the registration is closed by the time I’m writing about it, but more information about the event (including the participating startups and sponsors) is available on Vishal’s Startups blog.

This carnival will be a great opportunity for Aussie startups to showoff their projects, share insight about their business models, and also gain more understanding of startup entrepreneurship. Vishal and I were having a quick chat the other day at work, and he mentioned that CeBIT Australia is on-board to sponsor the event, which is even better for the participants. I had a quick glance at the list of participating startups, and one of them in particular – Plugger – looks quite impressive.

Vishal also mentioned that he tried to contact quite a few VCâ€™s to come on-board for the event, which would have been really good for the future prospects of some of the participating startups, but none of the VC’s took interest to join. Well, that’s how the VC scene is downunder. Some great startups coming up, but hardly any financial backing. It looks as if Australian VC’s don’t really understand technology startups — at all. They consider it a highly volatile investment, probably due to the ROI cycle of tech startups. But Aussie VC’s have to really ponder on their investment strategy in tech startups, and not just consider the same model as say — mining. In today’s global economy, the investment models cannot be horizontal across all sectors.

Most of all, I’d be really interested to see a seed funding model being adopted downunder for investment in new tech startups. Aussie VC’s need to learn a thing or two from their American and even Euro counterparts. Because at the end of the day, Aussie VC’s are losing up on a profitable stake, mainly because of their own ignorance.

Well, anyways, great effort Vishal, and good luck to all the participating startups!